More winter music

I know very little about Sarah Brightman: she was married to Andrew Lloyd Webber, she was the original female lead in his musical Phantom of the Opera, and she was the target of a very funny series of bits in the parody show Forbidden Broadway (her voice keeps getting higher and ridiculously louder as she sings) that had me laughing hysterically. She has an operatic voice and has had a successful pop music career worldwide (though more so in Europe than America, where she remains something of a cult figure).

I'd never been tempted by her music until the release of her new Christmas album, A Winter Symphony. Her voice takes a little getting used to--it's very high but fairly shallow, like a more highly trained version of Kate Bush--but her song choice and production (by Enigma member Frank Peterson) make the album quite enjoyable. As noted in the title, Brightman, like Enya, goes beyond just Christmas songs, though there are several of those here, including the traditional carol "In the Bleak Midwinter" and a very lovely vocal version of Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring." One song, "Child in a Manger," puts original lyrics about the Nativity to the melody of "Morning Has Broken."

She also goes beyond traditional classics, including Greg Lake's "I Believe in Father Christmas," ABBA's "Arrival" (which is here by virtue of a line that mentions Auld Lang Syne), and Roy Wood's "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday," a song I'd never heard before but which was apparently a big British seasonal hit in the 70's (and has been covered by the Spice Girls). This song, with its big Spectoresque production, is probably the album's best shot at becoming a standard, though it also has a very creepy moment when Brightman exhorts a children's choir to join in, screaming, "Come on children, sing" in a most demented fashion. She also does an OK "Silent Night," a Vince Gill broken-heart song called "Colder Than Winter," and Neil Diamond's "I've Been This Way Before," despite no apparent tie to the season. Overall, a very enjoyable album for the season and beyond. I might even head over to iTunes to look up more of her music, if I get some iTunes gift cards for Christmas.